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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE ECHO

So...... you think you’re all grown-up now.

Welcome to 25,

from another - slightly older - independent.

Happy Birthday from your friends at

proud printers of the Byron and Tweed Echo

(born 1862, but feeling much younger) 32 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

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www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

A message from our beloved leader David Lovejoy A silver anniversary! Who could have imagined that The Echo would still be active and obstreperous a quarter of a century after first engaging the Shire’s readers in a love-hate relationship? Well, mostly love on our side, as we carefully hand-carved the wooden printing blocks all those years ago and rolled them over the stretched vellum to produce that treasured first edition.

Other newspapers have a longer history, and most make more money, but few make as many waves as The Echo. It was conceived against a background of notorious human rights abuse when Nicholas Shand turned up at our Wilsons Creek house in 1986 and said he wanted to start a weekly newspaper.

I assumed he was drunk – his dishevelled appearance supported this view – or working as a front for a

religious cult. Who else but a drunk or a fanatic would want to lose money starting a newspaper? When I realised the paper was to be a tool of civil disobedience, printing the stories of police misbehaviour in Main Arm that other media would not touch, I tried to slam the door – but it was too late.

After a few bottles of red wine Nicholas convinced me and my then wife Wendy that running a newspaper was much more important than having a life, and we turned over our typesetting machine, process camera and Wendy’s graphic design skills to the new venture.

Twenty-five years later, and a long time since comet Nicholas shot out of our orbit, I am proud of The Echo, but prouder and happier to live in a place where such a newspaper can be produced and modestly prosper. Yes, we did once print an issue totally dedicated to stories of cannabis law reform;

Dr David Deathray and his chief of staff in their underwater headquarters, from Sharon Shostak’s intro clip for the Awards – see it at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=5j41OH1K6bA yes, we did play a large role in getting rid of a Council general manager; and yes, we do publish nude photos, April Fools, Mandy Nolan and fourletter words. Most readers lap up these larrikin tendencies,

and the fact that the more conservative members of our business community have remained supportive and understanding is a tribute to the strength and diversity of Byron Shire. And to our

high circulation and wide distribution.

I don’t want to yap on like an old fart and point out all the changes that have occurred over the last twenty-five years, but a lot of changes have

Inside the birthday machine:

Publisher David Lovejoy Editor Hans Lovejoy Supplement editor Michael McDonald Production manager Ziggi Browning Front cover illustration Stephen Axelsen http://stephenaxelsen.net/ Photographers Jeff Dawson, Eve Jeffery Advertising managers Angela Cornell and Stuart Amos Client liaison Amanda Bennett Contributors Mandy Nolan,Mungo MacCallum, John Campbell, Geraldine Searles, Lilith Rochas, Eve Jeffery, Sharon Shostak, John McCormick, Raoul, Leah Ashenhurst, and Anonymous.

Many thanks to all Echo staff past and present – and to their longsuffering families and friends – for their fabulous contributions over the years. Thanks also to all our advertisers and readers who kept the flame alive, either by waving their cigarette lighters or mobile phones in a darkened concert venue or by coming to our emotional and/or financial rescue. © copyright 2011 Echo Publications P/L, Village Way, Mullumbimby.

Printer: Horton Media Reg. by Aust Post Pub. No. NBF9237

Happy Birthday celebrations to the Echo

Weird beginnings… 34 Echo Awards… 35 An independent view… 37 Coastal vibrancy…38 A little cryptic… 39 Byron Zeitgeist… 40 A passionate place… 41 Journal of Edward Herring… 42 Off to the flicks… 43 Stargazing with Lilith… 44 Into the sunset… 45 Dog bites town… 46 Plus sundry other divertissements of an amusing nature, including a highly suspect timeline, daguerrotypes, poetry, letters, billets doux stained with tears, a hidden message from a walrus named Nancy, and a scratch ’n’ sniff panel possibly infused with psychotropics…

occurred over the last twentyfive years. Longterm residents know what has happened to the Bay and can see what is currently happening to Mullum. At the moment the changes seem mainly destructive of the Shire’s distinctive culture, but perhaps strong spirits can survive in new bottles.

Changes have also come to The Echo. Michael McDonald is easing himself towards retirement (we won’t let that ever be completely accomplished), and I also yearn for the quiet life. To make sure that doesn’t happen, my son Hans has taken over the editor’s chair and we are deeply involved in an exciting new web project that is designed to outlive the widely prophesied death of newspapers.

But we’re not dead yet, not even slightly moribund.

I hope you enjoy this silver anniversary edition!

TIMELINE

Pre Sans Serif – ink accumulates out of dark matter, driven together by gravity and the chance of a free meal. Prokaryotic cell organisms think about developing but decide it’s all too much like hard work.

The Echo runs into the blood/ brain barrier (only a theory at this stage) and waits for the passage of billions of years and for Goldilocks conditions which don’t involve large interstellar bears.

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The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 33

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Weird beginnings in the hills Sharon Shostak When I began research for The Echo Doco, I uncovered a littleknown but elementary fact – The Echo was seeded from dissent over the lack of media coverage of police abuse during the early marijuana raids in the 1980s.

Brought to life in the hills behind Mullumbimby in 1973 as a nine-year-old child, one of my earliest memories of family life takes place at night in a handmade kitchen structure illuminated by primus-lamp light. We strip bushy buds from marijuana plants freshly picked and overwhelming the small space, as we warm our backs to the antique cast-iron wood stove. Sibling rivalry is focused on who can amass the most of the sticky black resin on their fingers and who can find the biggest ‘head’. I remember marvelling at the mysterious intricacy of our mother’s prized fragrant buds.

Helen took to smoking marijuana and to bush living like a duck to water, much to the dismay of our close-knit Melbourne clan newly prospering after the devastation and relocation of the Holocaust. She left my father and suburban coverture for a Harley-Davidson-riding guitarist, and landed with us kids at the end of the Main Arm valley nearby to her unconventional sister already settled here. Mum’s boyfriend then burned down her just-purchased house in a fit of jealous rage, and so we moved in with the object of his jealousy. A day in the life of Main Arm. We were catapulted in the space of six months from a double-storey house with a tennis court and swimming pool in Caulfield’s Jewish heart to a hand-built shingled dome

The simplicity appeals to the depth of my being. It is here, on the other side of the planet, I realise that I want to settle back in Mullumbimby. That I’ve been suffering in the anonymous pace and blur of city living.

That I need to tap into the healing modalities available in the Byron area and find out what truly makes me thrive.

Coincidentally my mother is dying of cancer and I return home to care for her in the last three months of a heartbreaking decline. Even when she no longer had the strength to inhale it, Helen gleaned comfort from holding the joint in her mouth.

Though having been raised among the so-called hippies, with their splashes This is from when we first arrived before we got the house in of colour, capers with drugs, Main Arm (here renting in Wilsons Creek). I’m the little one in sex, and relationship chaos, the red, aged 9. Next to me my ma, our two dogs Goldy and Quad, my bro, my uncle Kanan, Mum’s cousin Juliette, little girl one of my ambitions with the documentary was to Ananda then an unremembered girl (Portia?), my aunt Phyllis steer away from stereotype and baby Shanti. and depict their experiment and kitchen shack on the edge get a bogged car out of a rut, with a sense of dignity of a forest. No electricity, no where the best waterholes are, and intelligence. For one hot running water (remember thing, growing up in a close and to keep on walking when those bucket baths?) and a community in Main Arm we accidentally stumble on pit for a toilet somewhere nurtured my creativity. oblivious adults having sex. down a bush path. Instead of The Echo Doco has been Helen wasn’t exactly a a private primary school with a privilege and a delight to hippy; she just flourished in 600 children, this one-roomed the freedom of expression that make. Unlike most people public school has 20 kids at that time I never met Nick characterised this pioneering taught by a single teacher. I am new-settler community. But Shand properly, nor even had in year five and there are only a conversation with him. We if my mother was stoned, I two other kids in my class. moved in different circles, and I refused to talk to her, even Settled in Mullumbimby was away at uni when The Echo on the telephone. Like many our mother bakes cinnamongot going. Some comment that children of the valley I couldn’t crusted apple cake to eat hot has been of great benefit for wait to leave Mullumbimby. on our return from exploring making a documentary on The ‘Blink and you’ll miss it,’ I the flooded creeks. We get Echo. Supposedly it has given used to say. It seemed to my a palomino horse named me a sense of objectivity. judgmental teenage eyes that Gorgeous George and I lounge all the misfits, the no-hopers, One thing this documentary on his velvety bare back under and the outcasts ended up here. has done is grant me the persimmon tree, mango, or Fast-forward to my early 30s opportunity to get to know guava. I pluck one luscious those responsible for the paper and I find myself in Galicia in fruit for myself and the horse today, and has cemented a the north of Spain, enthralled turns his head to take another by the familiarity of culture: deep appreciation for the from my hand. One for me, the rolling eucalypt hills nested individuals I have discovered one for the horse… We range behind the scenes at The Echo. with alternative-living people the hills in a small band of and a soothing earthiness that I Misfits, outcasts perhaps, but local kids, learn about how to remember from my childhood. remarkable and heartfelt all.

TIMELINE

Happy Birthday to the Echo

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34 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

The annual Kohinur Hall gathering in 1996 with the new building in progress. Mullumbimby photographer John McCormick has chronicled all aspects of the local community for many years and has also given many bands their first portfolio of publicity shots. John’s other claim to fame in the early days was developing and printing The Echo’s rolls of black-and-white film at odd hours of the night, if the editor Nicholas Shand remembered to drive them out to him. The task was sometimes so difficult for Nick that he once taped the roll to his forehead so he would remember.

See more of John’s work at www.johnwmccormick.net.

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Big Bang – atoms accrete out of nothing in particular, get excited and explode. The universe appears in the space of .0002367 nanoseconds or thereabouts accompanied by a bright light something like that seen first thing in the morning accompanied by a hangover. Nascent hangover potential excites Echo molecules, which then require bacon and eggs and a good liedown.

www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

We celebrated our 25th birthday!

As part of its 25th Birthday celebrations, The Echo staged an awards night at the Byron Community Centre last Saturday. The sellout crowd was entertained by Mandy Nolan, who did most of the hard work in putting the gig together, Julian Morrow, Rod Quantock, Scarlett Affection, Tim Freedman, and many more.

One of the highlights of the night was the presentation of Echo Awards to community volunteers nominated and voted for by community members.

And the winners are: Going that Extra Mile as a Volunteer

– Sean Latham; Inspirational Young Person – Emily Finberg; Fostering Multicultural Community – Yvonne Jessup; For Battles as an Environmental Warrior – Dudley Leggett; Inspiring Elder – Rusty Miller; and Inspiring & Tireless Coach or Mentor – Nicqui Yazdi. And a special lifetime community award was made to Norma Forrest for her tireless volunteering.

Thanks to BayFM and the Community Centre for being our partners in this event. Jeff Dawson and Eve Jeffery went wild on the cameras and took the photos below.

What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been The owners of The Poinciana Café, Keven & Karin Oxford have had a long & productive association with The Echo over its 25-year history. From our 10 years with the late Dan Doeppel operating The Byron Arts Factory during it’s pumping prime, we were one of this paper’s first regular advertisers. Then with our 15 years as founding owners of Byron Bluesfest the Echo was there to help us take it from “the little Festival that could” on to an award-winning event recognised as one of the best of its kind in the world.

Now 25 years later we still use The Echo to access the people of Byron Shire. It’s been a long weird journey & although Byron’s halcyon days may be behind us, if you can show us a better place on the planet to live & work, we’ll move there. We’d like to take the opportunity to thank The Echo for it’s support of our projects over the past 25 years & wish them a wonderful & prosperous future.

Norma Forrest – lifetime community award.

Your 50th Birthday Party is going to be a wild affair!

After twelve long, gruelling months the new roundabout & Station Street are finally open to traffic. We would very much like to thank our loyal customers for your patience & support over the past year.

Mae Wilde and Brian Mollet in cabaret.

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Echo editor Hans Lovejoy plays bass as well.

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Her Majesty and her consort turned up.

www.echo.net.au

The SWAT team was out in force.

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The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 35

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36 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

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www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

Growing up with an independent view

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

ECHO

Hans Lovejoy The Echo started when I was 14.

I remember founding editor Nicholas Shand’s larger than life personality vividly, and it is thankfully well documented through archival footage in the recent Echo doco by Sharon Shostak.

Nicky had huge charisma for the simple fact that he was interested in people; at a party, he would have met and charmed everyone by the night’s end, and his eventempered and light-hearted dealings with all types of people was of huge inspiration to me.

Of course he wasn’t without faults, but he provided leadership, humour and an inclusive vision which is unarguably something of a rare commodity.

Now that The Echo is 25 years old, this is an opportunity to look at the current direction we are heading in, and what this paper means to its readers and advertisers. It’s also a chance to look at how we can do our job better.

As editor, I expect that means providing critical thought and offering positive alternatives.

This also includes probing society’s accepted norms.

By doing so, it can hopefully illuminate ways societies can grow and evolve.

It’s easy to be cynical of the meaning of the word ‘independence’, thankfully however, it still means much to this community.

The Chaser’s Julian Morrow, who appeared at the recent Echo Awards, summed up independence in his Andrew Olle lecture: ‘Independence of mind also means independence from the audience. The way to create an original and interesting product is to not care what the audience would

Weddings – Functions – Corporate – Offices Tropical – Formal – Casual – Permanent

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Editor Hans Lovejoy in The Echo artroom. Photo Eve Jeffery think. You have to back your own judgment. That’s what audiences respond to most; usually with praise, occasionally with death threats. But pissing off people is part of the job, and that applies to both comedy and journalism.’

It’s indeed an odd profession where your job is pissing off people. That’s not all it is of course – it’s a privileged position where positive changes can occur.

Much like Council or any other position of a political and bureaucratic nature, there is immense community expectations and pressures of performance. I learned early in this job no matter how hard I try it will never be good enough to some.

Advertising and news have always shared an awkward symbiotic relationship, and that knife-edge is what keeps newspapers alive.

We fortunately live in an area where crowd sourcing, though a relatively new term, has been integral in The Echo’s

success. Without the constant bombardment of community input – from helpful news leads to harsh criticism, The Echo would cease to be relevant.

Independence prevails where intellectual pursuits and freedom of expression are encouraged, and that also applies with public broadcasters.

On ABC TV recently, Leigh Sales unexpectedly asked federal Labor’s Greg Combet if he was comfortable with locking up children in detention centres.

Asked twice, he would not answer directly; his response was only to say he supported his party’s position.

By not saying out loud ‘I am not comfortable with locking up children’, his conscience is clear, thus typifying our current political environment at every level; from local, state and federal.

The State Health Department is a prime example, with media liaison officers who generally respond

with the vaguest of answers.

In a recent interview with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, veteran US journalist Bill Moyers made the startling claim he won’t interview bureaucrats or politicians because they don’t answer questions honestly.

In the age of rapidly evolving high-tech and highly trained politicos, it’s up to journalists to keep the uncomfortable questions flowing and to decipher bureaucratic hieroglyphics.

My predecessor, Michael McDonald, had a gentle and humorous approach to the job which has been a great inspiration – dealing with the daily onslaught and pressure of this position was never going to be easy.

As The Echo marks its silver anniversary, I am officially the third editor-in-chief. This was always Nick’s gig though.

TIMELINE

Three things I hate about The Echo 1) My dad makes me fold them (and listen to the philosophical musings of an ‘experienced man’ while doing so).

2) The Echo means the world ends on a Tuesday if it’s raining.

3) I read it and write things like this instead of doing my homework.

– an anonymous hatefan 1. It gets wet in the rain.

2. Its opinions suck.

3. There’s too many classifieds.

– Gee Suss

1. There’s no scratch ’n’ sniff LSD patches.

2. It doesn’t glow in the dark.

3. You ever tried making a spliff with it?

– Ian Paisley

1. Too many words, not enough pictures.

2. There’s not enough fashion spreads.

3. Jeff Dawson never takes pictures of naked men.

– Celia D

1. There’s not enough advertising.

2. There’s not enough articles on shopping.

3. There’s no how-to articles on cosmetics.

– Anon

1. It promotes greenie bullshit.

2. It doesn’t support good business like Woolies.

3. It needs more stories about fishing.

– Anon

1. It gives me tinnitus.

2. It doesn’t smell like patchouli oil.

3. We get it at Slumrise a day late (true).

– Sending this hate mail with much love, Kathleen xoxo

www.echo.net.au

Stuff Period – stuff begins hanging out together in a swirly sort of way and manifests first as gas clouds, suns, planets and hairy bits. Antimatter goes into a corner – let’s posit a corner for a moment – and sulks for ten billion years. It is only shaken out of its lethargy by the formation of a concept involving close proximity of hydrogen and beer molecules, thus increasing the possibility of an Echo moment in the next wormhole.

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WHOLELIFE

Encouraging Community

The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 37

Celebrating 25 years of bourgeois anarchy

Capturing the coast’s vibrancy with Eve Jeffery About ten years ago a friend of mine from the Shire went to her hometown of Sydney to catch up with some friends and have a a couple of weeks’ break from being here. It happened to be winter in the city and she noticed how dark and dismal everyone looked and especially dressed. The contrast between the lack of colour in the big smoke and the vibrancy of our beautiful north coast pocket became so starkly obvious that she eventually had to tell her friends that they really needed a good dose of Byron to get some colour into their lives.

The Byron Shire is all about colour and contrast, light and shade – essential grist for the photographic mill. I love taking photos here. People are willing to express themselves both physically and emotionally in front of my lens, and folk almost never hold back on who they really are. Living and working here has allowed me to compile an honest interpretation of

the area and I am never short of willing participants for my almost insatiable compulsion t0 capture life’s snippets. The biggest challenge for me is too much of a good thing both in content and choice of subject – we have so many exceptional characters and great events and everyone wants to be in The Echo.

For a newspaper you need one good ‘money’ shot. I can’t count the times I have sat on a Monday morning in front of my computer in Mullum having to decide between too many great shots of Byron Shire life, all of which express what I want the people of the area to see in the pages of the paper. I feel a bit like a kid at a lolly shop. I want that one and that one and that one...

I am grateful to live in such a place where I can indulge my love of taking photos to the extent that I am constantly stimulated, then spent, then sated.

Thanx, peeps, for giving me your faces!

Always the best (like the Echo)

in Byron and Bangalow

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38 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

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www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

Getting a little cryptic with Jeff ‘Crypt Tick’ Dawson Taking photos for a local newspaper like The Echo, in a small community such as Byron Shire, can be a bit like living through Groundhog Day. Every year billycarts, blues, school fetes, muckup days, graduations and fairs.

The challenge is to get something different.

Having said that, in this region there is always something really interesting happening.

While photojournalism is about telling the story with a picture, I like to be a little more cryptic, more obtuse. My belief is that each photo, where possible, should ask enough questions to make the reader want to find answers by reading the story. I also like it if I can

make a photo which draws the viewer in. It’s hard to catch someone’s eye with a line-up of smiling faces or the handing over of a cheque, so I look for ways of making these a little different.

Documenting the celebrations and struggles, the efforts and triumphs, compassion and mourning of this small, diverse community has given me the opportunity to form bonds and relationships with people I might never have met. The ironic use of a middle name (thanks, McDuck) has given people a sense that I’m somehow more accessible and up for a bit of fun. It has made my job a lot easier.

Happy Birthday Echo

Byron Bay – 02 6685 7103 Coolangatta – 07 5536 5455 Broadbeach – 07 5570 2166 Woolworths Plaza, Jonson St Showcase on the Beach The Oracle, 12 Charles Ave

www.echo.net.au

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The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 39

Valid for one week or your money back

Byron Zeitgeist: shameless groaning, sparkly colons Mandy Nolan Over the last 25 years have you managed to keep up with the Byron Zeitgeist? For late adopters like me, you’re probably only starting the Candida diet now.

God knows, it’s hard to keep up. When I first came here 20 years ago it was Reiki. Everyone was a Reiki Master. The word conjures up an image of an elderly esteemed Japanese man schooled in the art of energy healing but, in fact, the Reiki Masters I encountered were generally hippy blokes in Thai fisherman’s pants and masseur sandals.

I turned up for a Reiki ‘massage’ which I mistakenly thought would be a bit like a Swedish job, firm and remedial, and I was well up for it. The therapist had me sitting bolt upright which was unusual for a massage, but one tends to be compliant in these situations.

I had my eyes closed as instructed as Reiki Boy breathed heavily. I thought perhaps he was having an asthma attack as it was my first experience of the spiritual ‘breather’ who in fact wants you to follow his primal exhalations. Then suddenly this guy grabs me in the kidney and proclaims ‘Rage’, you are full of Rage.

Really? Probably because you spent an hour holding your hands above my body without making contact and then finally when you did you assaulted me. So what if I headbutted you. Self defence.

This disappointing and rather upsetting process cost me $50 and resulted in a restraining order. After that the guy could only give me Reiki at 150 metres.

Then there was the colonic phase. I know people still have them, but there was a moment in the early nineties when you couldn’t relax at a local coffee shop without being informed in graphic blow-by-blow description about someone’s latest release. And that was from the cafe proprietor. Workshop ads in The Echo cheerily proclaimed ‘bring a bucket’.

People all around the Shire couldn’t wait to get home and hose out their last meal.

Just a few years later they all realised they were gluten intolerant. This was about the time of doofs. And ferals.

Proper ones, not like the ones you see now. Normal middleclass white kids suddenly connected with their Native American roots and started living in tipis. Some friends of mine even gave birth in them and attempted to bring up small children.

I have a young friend who spent her entire childhood sleeping on a sheepskin. She

Fortunately it was also the era of non-attachment. Which was the spiritual ‘Get Out of Monogamy Free’ Card. Tantric Sex was big. And it wasn’t something that you could just do with an instruction manual and a jar of lubricant, it involved workshops to not only pry your legs open but your heart as well. This was lights-on eye-gazing sex that could only be attempted in the era when we were either shit broke or loaded. You can’t have a three-day root when you’ve got a job. And hence tantra was the pastime of new-age drug lords and dole bludgers.

Suddenly the sex lives of half of the Byron Shire could be watched in a feature length doco available at Late Nite Video. Sacred Sex starred Unlike the song, people admitted her greatest fantasy hours of shameless groaning weren’t turning Japanese, was ‘a bed, a door and to go they were turning Sannyassin. and moaning from people I to school’. saw shopping at Fundies or Overnight Jenny became There were two types of chanting at Yoga everyday.

Peruva and David became ferals: the scary ones who We were letting it all hang wore animal pelts and pierced Nataraj. These were names out. Of course people still that sounded like new cars. their noses with bones, practise Tantra, but not in This was the era when I and the brightly coloured couldn’t pronounce anyone’s such open displays of public tie-dyed psychedelic ferals. abandon. Now it’s much more name. You’d go to call out The colourful ferals went discreet. Which I find very someone’s name during sex on to successful careers in but by the time you’d reached disappointing! advertising, and the heavily Remember when we all orgasm they’d changed it dreadlocked mushroom clutched a water bottle eaters moved up to Kuranda. again.

voxpops…

containing a Kombucha mushroom (looked a lot like a cervix to me), drinking in its life-giving fungal juice?

It must have been good, because I haven’t seen a Kombucha in over a decade.

Then there was that dreadful Phoenix pyramid scheme where friends and acquaintances gathered in excited huddles talking about ‘attracting abundance.’

While some flew on cashfeathered wings, others had their dreams shattered and the whole thing stunk like a $2,000 rotting egg.

We read The Secret and believed the chain-smoking Dr Emoto that affirmations on water bottles could change lives. We are perennial lovers of Yoga but even it has its sub-fads. One minute we’re all doing Astanga, then Iyengar, then it’s Yogalates and now it’s the hellfire-and-brimstone of a Bikram studio we crave.

We used to do the Hoffman Process, an expensive shortcut to our higher selves; now it’s the equally elitest and highly secretive Path Of Love.

It costs money to be a spiritual initiate in this town.

We’re fickle. We don’t stick with anything. We suck it dry and move on to the next snake oil merchant promising enlightentment, great sex and sparkly clean colons.

And that’s possibly what I love the most about this place. As a comedian it is a gift. And I thank all of you for allowing me the privilege of poking fun! I just can’t wait for what’s next!

Photo Jeff Dawson

TIMELINE

By r o n r e g i o n

Co

mmu

n i t y Co l l e

ge

Yes we’re nearly the same age!

(We’re just 2 years older) Echoing the community’s thanks for the paper’s past 25 years and best wishes for the next...

From 5th July, look out for the fabulous 2nd half year of courses on our website and in the Echo

Byron Region Community College Running nationally accredited, Diplomas, Certificates and Units.

Catering for a wide range of learning interests with our acclaimed community short courses including arts, business, computers, languages, wellbeing, sustainability, cooking and personal development.

Byron Region Community College 6684 3374 | www.byroncollege.org.au 40 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

Akmal Saleh, comedian: What I love about the Byron Shire is that it’s a long way from Rockhampton (and what I hate is its close proximity to Casino).

I see schoolies as modern refugees. In 25 years’ time I would like to see all schoolies sent to Malaysian detention centres for an education and all refugees accepted here. The schoolies will come back better people.

Jacko Kwong, kid: What I love most is the great beach and I hope that in 25 years’ time the beach will still be just as good as it is now.

Interviews and photos Eve Jeffery

Black Hole Hiccup – a large black hole develops, swallowing all light and the blueprint for the material universe. Elementary organisms search their pockets but with no luck. In a reaction not unlike that sweet moment when the percolator coughs coffee up into the top chamber, Echo molecules are ejected from the black hole to form an alternative universe with far greater potential for rainbows.

www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

A passionate place to argue about politics Mungo MacCallum

Pauline Hanson. Like a baby koala crouched in its mother’s Ah, 1986. Bob Hawke and Paul pouch, I have been able to Keating at the height of their ignore political atrocities powers and Andrew Peacock which, had I still been in and John Howard in the Canberra, would have been all depths of their acrimony. but unendurable: why, they Looking back, it seems a might even have driven me golden age; but then, looking from drink. back just about every year of Fortunately in the company politics since federation looks of the Echo hierarchy, pretty good compared to the journalists of the old school, present one. Still, even at the there was seldom any risk of time it looked okay. that. That was the best thing Preparations were well about the milieu: The Echo is under way for our bicentenary invariably opinionated, can (the masturbation of a nation, be bloody-minded and even as it became known to the undertakes the odd crusade, cynical) and the economic but unlike the dour and outlook was rosy. The mood fanatical Australian, it never was optimistic, and while it takes itself too seriously. lacked the euphoric frenzy of Given the descent of the early Whitlam years, there Australian political life into was a feeling that Australia polls, focus groups, slogans, was, once again, a lucky lies and above all impotent country. cowardice, the only way to It was an auspicious time remain sane is to maintain for the birth of a newspaper, a sense of the ridiculous: especially so after the worrying laughing just to keep from pregnancy that brought forth crying. In this endeavour, The The Echo. I was unaware of this and permanent parliament lifestyle lingers on and nothing has come a long and fruitful was and is a stimulating and a Echo succeeds magnificently. momentous event; no new star house was already looming At a time when political captures it better than The association. passionate place to argue out appeared in the Canberra skies like a giant decaying tooth journalism, along with many Echo.

We actually moved to Ocean the problems of the nation, to guide me to the north-east. on the summit of Capital Hill. other branches of the craft, I discovered the paper more Shores later that same year nay, of the world, the very But I was beginning to move in Even at that stage I could see appears to have lost its way in or less by accident: on one of (1988) and I quickly realised cosmos. the right direction anyway. a mire of pomposity, The Echo, that this would be a major my holiday forays I was sprung that my political approach had And its ethos was Life in the press gallery threat to my way of journalism, by Jeff Dawson and as a result to change. Technology, and determinedly left. Even today, I independent, idiosyncratic was not what it had been; politics and life in general. The was invited to The Echo’s first especially the fax machine, like to boast that Byron Shire is and always upbeat, remains a the joggers were displacing move was scheduled for the award night. I recall being meant I could keep in touch, the only local government area safe haven for those of us who the sybarites and the brisk climactic year of 1988, which asked to present an award to, but I was no longer in the belly in the state north of Newcastle might otherwise despair of the working (four-hour) lunch was would bring me close to two I think, Michael McDonald, of the beast: I missed out on that consistently prefers Labor state of the nation. giving way to outbursts of Politics matters; it is, as I decades in the national capital, and winning Derek Harper’s the gossip, the rumours, all the at both federal and state tennis and even touch football. surely time for parole. have often said, the most limerick contest with the background noise of politics elections (well until this year, Jenny had already convinced important invention of the So we settled, more or less, following poignant effort: that I relied on to give my anyway) and voted Yes at the me that there could be life human race, because it is the on buying something in the We long for the day when writing an edge. republican referendum. And beyond Canberra, and we were general area of Brunswick only way we can solve disputes The Echo/ Can run to a wine On the other hand there except for aberrations, the beginning to explore the north Heads: we admired the without killing people. When that’s more secco./ What were advantages: a certain council also has a greenish coast on brief holiday forays politics lapses into disrepair beaches, the fish co-op, the the paper affords/ For this remoteness led to a more majority. My kind of place. with a view to something more pub and the train service. and disrepute, as threatens evening’s awards/ Resembles thoughtful (though not, Indeed, Byron has permanent. to be the case at present, the The last is of course long the piss of a gecko. thankfully, more sober) occasionally spoiled me for And the matter was patient needs all the help it gone, and the pub has been I donated the $50 prize to perspective. I could see things the real thing. Surrounded becoming more urgent: a can get. dog-freed and gentrified out the Nick Shand Literary Fund. in a wider context. And of by lefties of one kind or cloud no smaller than the new of all recognition, but the And in its rehabilitation, The And from that unlikely start course Byron Shire provided its another I have been largely Echo plays a small but vital own political ambience; shorn sheltered from the horrors of role. Long may it continue to of its new-age nonsense (or the John Howard regime and do so. perhaps even because of it) it its attendant sideshows like Shire hippies

clad in studied gamy brown cloth, with carefully styled dreads fresh from the hills... buying organic, shipped from italy ‘manifest’ and ‘universe’ used in every conversation at least twice... yet not wanting to actually labour... or toil... or sweat... might miss the full moon... rising

share rentals column woolies rejecting spacious spiritual house television free, carpet free, mould free, seeking a first-born, vegan, sterile working female, virgo rising a bonus caffeine free, dairy free, drug free, alcohol free, ’blasto’ free, no kids, step or otherwise, no pets... without a doubt... no ex-husbands, no boyfriends lurking around ready to sleep in... the... driveway... in their rusting unregistered uninsured coaster rich overseas parents would be a bonus, possibly the universe manifesting our perfect soul house mate – Leah Ashenhurst www.echo.net.au

TIMELINE

Earth String Period – String Theory finally abandons parallel universes locked together like bubbly mattresses and finds a nice planet to settle down on. This planet is later called Earth by some of the inhabitants.

Because of the fundamental attraction of String to Echo molecules, newspaper tendencies – sometimes called typons by physicists – begin to crystallise in the Earth’s crust.

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The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 41

For proper viewing, take red pill now

The Journal of Edward Herring (the drug cops revisited) An unimaginably long time ago in a universe which lies in parallel with ours and shares the same subatomic particles (an arrangement which bears on the indeterminancy principle, but not much) a sudden gravitational event wrenched the cosmic balance all the way round the dial. This is not a delicate balance, fortunately, but an extremely sturdy one: by definition the strongest that exists. Yet it was upset to such an extent that eons later, and just a little time ago by our calendar and in our corner of space, strange portents appeared, such as a rain of live newts, a slice of ‘It has been a terrible year, Herring, and there’s no question of you getting a raise.’ The editor of The Times, Mickey O’Mallard, does not mince words when it comes to the newspaper’s finances. These are shaky at the best of times, and I’d obviously not chosen one of them.

O’Mallard went on without pausing for breath. ‘No question at all. This is a terrible time for newspapers. Why, do you realise that each of the drudges at Amalgamated Publishing Nazis in Littlemore is being told to do the jobs of two people? They’ve halved their workforce and still manage to double their output of political beatups, lifestyle vapour and shock horror tabloid pages.’ He swivelled his chair towards the window for emphasis.

‘The Shelley Cove Bugle is part of APN and it’s doing OK,’ I said, helping myself to a fruit lozenge from a jar on the editor’s desk while his back was turned. The label read ‘Samples of RWL’. They do a great job, the Rural Women’s League, I thought.

‘You should actually read The Bugle, Edward.’ He turned and ferreted amongst the junk on his desk. Finding a copy of the newspaper he tossed it over to me. ‘You’ll see they are so broke they are begging the public to supply cover photographs for their holiday edition.’

‘Well, I can’t see it’s such a terrible time,’ I said. ‘After all, the candidates we backed did win the Assembly election at the beginning of the year.’

‘Yes, and what has that meant?

The most boring Assembly meetings in living memory. You can’t sell newspapers when they’re all agreeing with other and being positive and brotherly. Heart politics!’

O’Mallard’s voice was scathing. ‘The Assemblypersons are even doing workshops together.’

‘Not quite,’ I reminded him. ‘Corporal Grub pulled out when they wouldn’t schedule his favourite, Getting In Touch With Your Inner Rodent.’

The editor ignored this. ‘And the defeat of the moderate faction in the palace means there’ll be bigger budgets for the military to start more wars, and for civilian security, which is code for a massive increase in watchmen with nothing better to do than chivvy the citizenry. And with our local mafioso Little Anthony out of the picture the palace won’t bother to spend money advertising in The Times like they used to, ‘cause they’ll think we’re all too far gone for mere persuasion. They’ll be sending in the tanks and helicopters, mark my words.’

Thus, for the eighteenth consecutive year my request for a raise was turned down. As I left the editor’s office, The Times’s ancient production manager looked up from the compositor’s form where, with the aid of a mallet and a pair of tweezers, he was laboriously handsetting a classified ad in six point gothic.

42 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

pizza bearing the image of the Virgin Mary and Byron Shire Council passing several unanimous motions.

None of this has any connection with the fate of Edward Herring, a journalist with the Byron Shire Echo. Edward merely embarked on an airship to Queensland to interview the then premier, got lost in a space-time infandibulum and never returned. That was 25 years ago, but from time to time we get despatches from Edward, who now ekes out a penurious living as a journalist with the Mullcogan Times in Shelley Shire. These communications mysteriously appear

saved on the editorial server, or pinned to the lunchroom bulletin board, or encoded in the chess editor’s emails.

This extract from Herring’s journal of seven years ago, however, was handed to our receptionist in an envelope marked ‘urgent’ by a tall albino wearing nothing but a feathered headdress, an iPod and body paint. In her defence for mislaying the document and remembering nothing of its provenance until after the brain surgery, the receptionist points out that a lot of very strange people pass through The Echo office. [Steve Axelsen drew the picture]

drugs and beating up hippies. What’s to know?’

After I had been kitted up with bullet-proof vest, helmet and various communication devices the helicopter took off and swept south.

‘Aren’t we supposed to be checking the Mullcogan valleys?’ I asked through the intercom.

‘Yeh,’ said the sergeant, ‘but first we’ve got to check out the beaches.’

He was glued to the eyepiece of the enormous telephoto lens which was part of the Happyweed detection equipment. ‘Would you look at that!’ he chortled.

It didn’t take much detection to realise he was checking out the nude beach north of Shelley Cove, but my attention was drawn to an area south of the town. A huge brown sludge several hundred metres wide was trickling out of the everglades at Norfolk Gardens and into the sea.

As we flew closer I could see that the sludge emanated from a cluster of buildings in the swamp.

The sergeant realigned his telephoto lens and took some pictures of the everglades.

‘Good to see that new resort’s got its sewage problems sorted at last,’ said the sergeant. ‘I daresay the owner might give me a few bob for these, er, survey photos.’

everything, but it still seems – oh god, look out for that flying fox!’

The pilot laughed. ‘It better watch out for us. We’ve chopped up whole colonies of flying foxes before now.’

‘No,’ I shouted, ‘the banana wire strung across the valley. We’re heading straight for it!’

There was a stomach-churning jolt and the sound of the engine went horribly wrong. The helicopter started spinning as it fell and the last thing I heard was the sergeant crying for his mother. Then everything was mercifully blotted out.

‘Herring! Special assignment, look sharp.’

In his office O’Mallard pulled a sheet of paper out of the untidy pile in front of him and handed it to me.

‘AGM of the Rural Women’s League tonight. Haven’t you drawn the plum job.’

Disorientated, I looked wildly round.

The tickertape machine was gone, but the jar on the desk was still there. It was still labelled ‘RWL’.. I picked it up.

‘Careful with that, Edward,’ said the editor. ‘It’s evidence the watch has lent us. They want us to run a picture of it and a story on how well they’re around Mullcogan.” In other words, ‘Don’t worry, lad,’ he said, ‘times dealing with the Drug Menace. Fat it’s payback time.

But there’s more: are always hard. But if you need a chance when they won’t even let us “You are invited to embed a journalist bit of cash, you can always do some cover the annual Happyweed raids.’ with the unit, in order to avoid the overtime work for me.’

‘But I did just cover…’ I stopped. sort of inaccurate and sensationalist ‘What sort of work, Production? I ‘What does “RWL” stand for?’

Sightseeing over, the helicopter stories which abound in the media.” can’t run the presses.’

‘Oh, Raving Weed Lozenges. The They mean your ridiculous campaign swung back north and was soon ‘No,’ wheezed the old man, ‘but flying over a small cabin in the hills. Its latest party craze apparently.’ against the sniffer dogs, Edward.’ you can do a bit of subbing. This There was a sickening pause while ‘I thought that was OUR campaign,’ rotors flattened the bushes and the column has just come in from Horatio plants in the vegetable garden beside my personal time stream and that of I said.

Bitemark who’s overseas on some the homestead. In the confined space the rest of the universe tried to find ‘You wrote the reports, I believe. junket –‘ a point of agreement. ‘Did I ask for a between the cliff walls of the valley Anyway, I’ve replied to this message ‘I can’t subedit a colleague’s copy,’ I raise a few hours ago?’ I managed to the engine roar was crushing. Like a and accepted the assignment on said, horrified. ‘If it’s too long, let him say. monstrous dragonfly the helicopter your behalf. You are now officially cut it himself.’

O’Mallard looked at me quizzically. hovered close to the house, so close embedded with the Watch.’

‘It’s not so much a question ‘You did ask for a raise a few minutes I could see a child on the verandah of subbing as deciphering,’ said ago,’ he said. ‘The answer’s still no.’ with her face contorted in fear. A Without delay I presented myself at Production. ‘Apparently his club woman came out of the kitchen door the Mullcogan watch house. has organised a trade show of and shook her fist at us.

‘Nothing to do with us, mate,’ said psychoactive substances and he’s one ‘Hey, Hawkeye,’ shouted the the duty officer. ‘You want those upof the judges, if not one of the main sergeant in the intercom, ‘bet you five themselves wallies from the capital. exhibits. Look.’ bucks you can’t shoot ten rounds right They’ve got a helicopter and half a He flattened a crumpled piece of through that water tank!’ battalion’s worth of rough-terrain paper on his bench. In his gradual ‘Nah, sarge, it’s concrete,’ said the vehicles parked on the school playing retreat from reality Horatio had pilot. ‘These hippies have taken all the fields.’ apparently abandoned the alphabet fun out of the job.’

When I reached the school the for some kind of pictogram. The ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I thought the Happyweed squad were impatient first line looked like a two-headed to start operations and not especially rules said you weren’t to fly closer crocodile chasing a row of ducks. than five hundred feet to an inhabited pleased to have a member of the The figures writhed and changed building?’ press with them. before my eyes. They seemed to ‘Listen carefully, Mr Herring,’ said I introduced myself, and they reform into the Latin phrase in somnio the sergeant. ‘We interpret the rules gave me a form indemnifying the veritas. government for any harm that might as necessary when in hot pursuit of ‘I think it says “Truth in dreams”, Mullcogan drug lords.’ befall me and reserving the right to Production. How strange.’

Prepubiscene – Primitive lifeforms, ‘Yes, but this is just a harmless Any further interpretation we might spin, mutilate or destroy any of my now known as editors, begin to have come up with was forestalled by reports. I signed reluctantly and asked family farm and – ‘ emerge from the primordial ocean.

‘It may look like a harmless family some elementary questions about the editor flinging open his door.

Unable to fend for themselves other Happyweed, but the watchmen, who farm to you, buster, but back in ‘Herring! Special assignment, look than by extracting alcohol and were dressed in black shiny uniforms, the capital it will be written up as a sharp.’ boots and dark glasses, did not seem Happyweed plantation worth several carbohydrates from the atmosphere, they nevertheless survive the billion dollars, and that means my to know very much about their task.

In his office O’Mallard was running Cambrian, Ordovician and Sleazian mates and I will be back here next ‘Listen, mate,’ said the sergeant in tickertape through his fingers. ‘It’s periods with only a few grazes on charge, ‘all year we’ve been picking up year for our R&R, and the year after just as I predicted,’ he said. ‘Listen to their knuckles. Echo permutations that, and we won’t take kindly to drunks and beating up blacks in the this: “A special unit of the Watch will begin to gather in colonies called capital city, and now it’s time for a nice anyone queering the pitch.’ be engaging in Happyweed search ‘I know I’ve signed the form and Halftones. paid holiday in the sticks picking up and destroy missions in the valleys

TIMELINE

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www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

The pitfalls of going to the flicks for a living John Campbell Cat Carer came up to me the other day.

I was sitting in the sun by the river at Bruns, eating a falafel roll. Watching the seagulls.

Emptying my head.

Though much younger, she’s a long-standing friend of the flesh and blood variety, as opposed to my ‘Like: Comment: Share’ ones on Facebook. I’d seen little of her since we buried my ginger moggy, Portnoy, under the crepe myrtle at the front gate a few years back. How brittle his bones.

A rankled aura preceded her, so the accusatory tone was hardly surprising.

‘I saw that movie you reviewed last week, Old Man.’ Being house-minder and pet-sitter for a big fish in The Echo’s little pond had encouraged in Cat Carer a swagger that went hand in glove with her innate brazenness – not that she’d ever concede such.

‘You said it was funny.’

She clearly thought it wasn’t and for a minute I expected her to demand that I reimburse her the price of her ticket.

You get that sort of umbrage

Now that’s what I call a vampire. Compared with the great Nosferatu, Stephenie Meyers’s Bella and Edward were a dead loss when they hit the screen. from time to time when you have a regular newspaper column. Opinions are a dime a dozen and they’re all on the nose.

‘Totally.’

Which is why it is futile and simply not kosher to try to anticipate those of the reader.

Cinema, perhaps more than any of the popular arts, is immediately reflective of its audience’s changing values and shared dreams. And peculiarities too – where else but in our Shire could the two mind-numbing hours of Down The Rabbit Hole, oozing bogus revelations and numbskull

philosophy like sausage through a mincer, get more than a couple of screenings before being laughed out of town?

‘That movie so sucked.’

Cat Carer’s appraisal is typically succinct. But in hindsight, I now appreciate that as a last loopy flailing of the counterculture that we kid ourselves we still represent (while McMansions increasingly litter the hills ‘like confetti in a graveyard’ and the Bluesfest becomes an organisation as bloated as Royal Weddings Inc), the nostalgic flakiness of Down The

Rabbit Hole should not be too hastily dismissed.

Otherwise, the heavy hammer of screen orthodoxy has prevailed here as it has everywhere else, with its inescapable cultural imperialism, dude, and its endless sequels – Harry Potter, Batman, Die Hard, Saw, Fast And Furious and… Jesus wept, was a fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean absolutely necessary? Sure, we all love Johnny Depp, and we pray that he can keep the wolves from the ramparts of his French chateau, but I reckon even he’s had enough of Jack Sparrow. I know I have.

And who would have dreamt that vampires might emerge from the velvet-lined coffins of juicy B-grade schlock into the blinding light of celebrity worship?

The premiere of Twilight, the first of the adaptations of Stephenie Meyers’s Bella and Edward soapie, remains the only movie session at which I was unable to get a seat – despite arriving half an hour early. When I finally did get in I was astounded by its lameness. I believe there’s another episode on the way (will Edward finally get a leg-

over?), but frankly, I’d rather be at Les Donnelly Field watching the Giants go around – a confession (revealing my love of rugby league) that’s not endeared me to the Good and the Great.

You see, you can criticise mainstream pulp to your heart’s content, but woe betide if your response to an ‘important film’ deviates from the school of selfcongratulatory propriety.

‘Are you fishing for more hate mail, Old Man?’ She winks at me encouragingly – it’s all I need.

After I’d bagged Samson And Delilah there were the anticipated howls of indignation in the letters pages – I would have been less harshly treated had I shot Bambi – but unexpectedly, and to my immense gratification, a number of dissidents (none of whom were Hansonites) told me, sotto voce, that they supported what I’d written, confirming my suspicion that, in the yarts, intellectual rigour will always run a distant second to hair-shirted piety.

‘Samson was cute, but.’

Cat Carer regards Ashton Kutcher with similar affection.

I won’t hear a word spoken

against Kirsten Dunst or Zooey Deschanel, so I let it pass.

Then there are the airheads who, wilting under the pressure of concentrating on the movie for more than five minutes, need to flick on their iThingumies to get the latest riveting update on a friend’s activities – ‘texting u’ – and feel compelled to reply!

‘Are you gonna have a spray about the feet on seats?’

Stirring the possum, Cat Carer reminds me of when we attended a morning screening of the pathetic Red Riding Hood.

Nearby were three Japanese girls and, across the aisle, a few of their local counterparts. I’ll let you guess which ones sat as though they were readying themselves for a pap smear.

And while all this was happening, I grew to love Pixar’s fabulous animations, gave up on Australia ever making a halfway decent romantic comedy, finally ‘got’ Bruce Willis and… I started to find Will Ferrell funny.

‘You need treatment, Old Man.’ She smirks.

‘Check out the Echo classifieds for healers. There’s like, heaps of them up here.’

TIMELINE

voxpops…

Andrew Crockett, author: The Byron Shire is just far enough away from the chaos that is Tweed Heads. I hope that in 25 years Byron has moved backwards in this forward world.

Rebecca Hunt, hospitality industry: I love that we are still a relatively small community and have remained quite rural. I hope that we will be able to maintain an atmosphere where we still all know each other and are not just another faceless city along the east coast.

Madeleine Faught, Rainforest Rescue and media writer: The Byron Shire has an historic capacity to embrace all who settle here. I hope that in the future it has the capacity to recognise and appreciate the skills inherent in its population, to be eco-centric rather than egocentric, and to be fully focused on being ‘life enhancing’ in everything we do and at all levels.

Interviews and photos Eve Jeffery.

www.echo.net.au

Plasticine – anything seems possible as proto-Madonna arthropoids invent the fire stick, single cell sex and rhinestone bracelets. These are lost in the first great Ice Age. Then giant winged birds rule the skies and the Earth disappears under a layer of guano. Editors take shelter in caves and under primitive leaves. Halftone colonies suffer from solarisation.

Bridglands and the Echo

Growing old together family owned since 1908 69 BURRINGBAR STREET, MULLUMBIMBY 6684 2511

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The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 43

The fresh news people

A quarter century of stargazing with Lilith turns out to be uncooked cake. How much does the gorgeous goddess charge for Deep Masculine Honouring with sacred tantric full body massage? Dunno, call her.

Hey, wait a sec– what about Beetu massage? It isn’t even on Google, how exotic is that!

I can chart the course of almost a quarter century of my own personal history through old Echos. Garage sales at former addresses advertising the extraordinary amount of past-life stuff I barely remember collecting: a woven water hyacinth day bed, aquamarine cast iron claw foot bath, flokatis, kilts, Indian silks, Texan cowboy boots, Moroccan lightshades, Tibetan When I moved to Byron in 1989 money belts, Turkish caftans, Nick Shand, a wildish guy I’d New Guinea bilums, African met in Sydney, asked me to fabrics, Burmese lacquer, write an astrology column for Indonesian weavings and the the local paper and I’ve been notorious tropical trouser – doing it ever since. My longestIrian Jaya penis sheaths. Ads running job, fifty-one weeks a for teaching dance at ACE, year for twenty-two years. Even performing at Shearwater, while learning hula in Hawaii, Byron Vista Social Club and the hanging out at the Jumping Ukulele Collective. Reviews of Cats Monastery in Burma or Woodford, Womad, visiting partying in Rarotonga. Even musicians and historic eateries. on weeks of irate phone callers Hosting Hawaiian teachers. demanding to know why Requiems for Aboriginal I’d been replaced. Really, by elders… whom? Shred Potomac! Oh, that It was fun being part of The just means they lost the copy Echo’s baby steps, formative and Michael wrote it…

Top, Lilith performing in 1989 and, below, Lilith in action recently. years and teen times and I’m Arriving fresh from two The thirst that from the soul morphing into franchise outlets pleased to be included in its decades of Sydney inner grownup status. As for the next doth rise, doth ask a drink divine. and diagonal lines cleverly city living I gazed amazed at 25 years I won’t be round for Brooke: Breathless, we flung halving parking in the CBD, soychinos, tofuburgers, ferals us on a windy hill, laughed in there’s still a sense of continuity all of them, but with Uranus in camped on the pavement Aries the cosmic joker’s wild the sun and kissed the lovely because some things never outside retail stores with their change. Like the Echo Classies, and anything can happen. The dogs, didges and furry families, grass. Keats: Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather whose Animal Communication polar shift’s already started, people in tipis breeding global catastrophe’s the new and a little music played out Circles, Angel Workshops and buckets of fungus they fondly of doors by somebody I do not Register Now For The Ten Week normal, and as the prophet called Our Kombucha Beast of our times sang as far back Course On A New Earth are a and a strange rainbow coalition know. Dryden: Dancing is the poetry of the foot. Marvell: The guaranteed source of hilarious as 1965: You don’t need a of hotties with lustrous locks weatherman to know which way nectarine and curious peach into speculation for out-of-town brushing their naked waists, guests who delightedly google the wind blows. mature guys in tights and belly my hands themselves do reach; We’re told the Bundjalung stumbling on melons as I pass, Geometries of the Heart, dancers with endangered people, traditional inhabitants ensnared with flowers, I fall on Arcturian Alignment, Living rainforest underarms. of the Bay, consider it a grass. Wordsworth: The ocean Cities of Light and Tokkoh Streets named after poets meeting and birthing place, is a mighty harmonist. Kipling: (apparently a non-hierarchical seemed to set the tone. and this easternmost point of Call a truce then, to our labors, form of decision making – Tennyson: Come my friends, the Aussie continent continues let us feast with friends and good luck guys and marks for ‘tis not too late to seek a newer to operate as a magnetic vortex neighbors. Shelley: Love is free… trying). Alive and Wild Raw world. Browning: Life calls of celebration, relaxation Over two decades later, Food conjures up images of to us in some transformed, and regeneration where sanguinous bacchantes but apocryphal, new voice. Jonson: despite interesting designers

both visitors and locals are wont to experience a spono: a spontaneous spin out, epiphany, or as Tennyson put it: My heart, pierced thro’ with fierce delight, bursts into blossom.

For the foreseeable future Ruskin, another of what we like to call our street poets,

Only the lonely Why do fools fall in love? How many roads must a man walk down? Who’ll stop the rain?

These, and other eternal questions, trouble the mind of your southernmost subscriber, here in the dark lonely South Australian winter. (Max temp today: 6 degrees.) Fog enshrouds all.

What kind of fool am I? I ask myself here in my Siberian silence and exile. Writing to you warms the icy heart a little, but doesn’t stop the shaking.

In the meantime frostbite

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carried off another postman; cats lie still under bushes, and forget to breathe; parrots lose their grip, and ease upon the midnight with no perch; car engines groan terribly, and speak no more; fine fellows fan failing fires and faint; icemaidens avert their blue noses; and bedsheets snap.

Only the lonely know the way I feel tonight.

See you at Christmas.

John Macgregor

Adelaide SA July 18, 1990

Who owns Shire debt?

So BSC is in debt to the tune of $813,000 in Mr Rawson’s expert opinion and I see no obvious reason to doubt the debt and the figure. Yet I would like to know to whom this money is owed. There is little said about the creditors and their role in the BSC Debt Drama.

Who allowed the debt to grow to this size without attempt to recover? Local suppliers of goods? Banks? Overseas Financiers? Investment Trusts?

State of Federal Governments?

Some entrepeneur with a gold mine in mind?

The nature of the debt has a lot to do with the case. Very interesting. Could it be an estimated future shortfall in the general fund? Unpaid Local Suppliers? Not likely. Never could that amount accumulate without loud wails. If it is Government funding, can’t it be recorded like the national debt and given to our grandchildren, as our betters do. If it was supplied from risk capi-

Raoul, along with his friend Peter King, has been an occasional contrubutor to The Echo since about 1993, whence this cartoon, still relevant today.

44 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

observed: There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

But no surprise that it was mad, bad, dangerous to know Lord Byron who best described the spirit of his namesake playground: Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

tal, then the risk was too high, wasn’t it, becoming a financial loss for the lender? If it took 12 months to ferret out and ‘finetune’ there must be some slack creditors somewhere too! What would have been the case if it had not been ‘found’? Did Mr Rawson pull a ‘debt-rabbit’ out of the Council ‘hat’? If there is an interest bill to be paid, who gets paid now and how is the amount arrived at? Surely there are a least two accountants with the figure. I mean to say, there are some very strange things happening here!

E C Prosser

Main Arm March 18, 1987

TIMELINE

Cretinaceous – humans think agriculture is a good idea after millennia of hunting stuff. They form settlements, grow things, and property development is invented.

Property developers fight wars over each other’s property and invent gods with which to blame other developers. Echo reporters, evolved from those primeval editors, pick up stone tablets and begin recording the property wars. The property developers accuse them of being negative and antiprogress, thus beginning a rich cross-species symbiosis.

www.echo.net.au

The Echo’s Silver Anniversary Souvenir Liftout

Riding into the sunset, horseless ‘I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.’ – title of a song by Mickey Newbury, rejected by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1967 and a hit for The First Edition in 1968 with Kenny Rogers on vocals.

Michael McDonald It was time. After 15 years as editor and 22 reporting on everything from public protests to heartfelt theatre, I felt the need for generational change and more time spent staring at chickens.

Towards the end of last year I started easing myself out of the editor’s chair – with the help of coconut oil and a crowbar – and handing over duties to Hans Lovejoy.

Incidentally, Hans is about the same age as I was when I started working directly for The Echo in 1988 after a stint as overseas correspondent in Tasmania. Then he was still in high school but already published in the letters pages.

I’ve come full circle in a way. I started off in the office, at that time in a Brunswick Heads arcade off Fingal Street, condensing news items into briefs. I do that now on Mondays. On Fridays and Saturdays I sub letters and pinups, write Backlashes and lay out the letters and articles pages and write rude comments for the TV guide.

The most important duty on Saturday is indulging in hot chips with the art crew.

Do I miss the heady power of being the editor of The Echo? Not in the slightest. Am I going to ask myself more questions a la Kevin Rudd in the rest of this article? Don’t worry, I’m not.

It is a tradition among small independent newspapers, especially in Australia, for the editor to be irascible and hard-hitting. I couldn’t manage it. After all, that’s what the receptionist is for.

Nevertheless, my opinions and the tone of the paper in general caused grief and apoplexy in a cross-section of

Top, Michael McDonald 25 years ago in Tasmania when he first started writing for The Echo, and bottom, feeding his chooks in Sharon Shostak’s film The Echo Doco – Born To Be Trouble. the community, among them those who could argue their opinion and others who were borderline psychotic. And that’s what the receptionist is for. I am eternally grateful to the goddesses who fielded countless phone calls, especially Flick who won the Jason’s Favourite Bitch award at The Echo’s 20th birthday beanfeast, and coped with flecks of sputum from the chronically mannerschallenged. For the emails, there is the spam button.

Rejection offends, and it might seem shameful that one person has so much control but try doing it with a Maoist collective to deadline week after week.

To relieve the tension of being measured and responsible – which led Fast Buck$ to once describe me as ‘relentful’ – and simply because I could, I created multiple personalities. Now it can be revealed that, yes,

I am also Horatio Bitemark, Shred Potomac, Swami Cootamundra, any number of one-night-stand noms de plume and the latest shooting star of the Good Taste pages, Edwina Blightrose. Years of imitating the styles of famous novelists when I was a teen led me to a facility for different voices and an enjoyment in engaging them.

They are all exemplars of Paul Theroux’s dictum, ‘I believed that comedy was the highest expression of truth.’

What have I learned about humankind from being the editor? (Damn, I asked myself a question again!)

That, contained in one small Shire, is all of human life, from the constantly selfless to the eternally grasping.

Some people have a sense of humour, some none at all.

Some need you as a target, whether you are the cause of their angst or not, others are happy to congratulate

you on the feeblest of your efforts. Some will believe anything – hence the success of our Classifieds pages – and some nothing at all. I have also learned that in the public mind issues will recur, often without knowledge of the history attached, and as often as not be forgotten about after two weeks, apart from the attention of a few determined letter writers.

Much of humankind I have also learned from the people I have worked with. They have been a source of great pleasure and delight and a tame audience for many of my feeble jokes. It’s just a shame so many of them have died along the way – first of course the paper’s founder Nicholas Shand, followed sadly by journalist Carol Page, receptionist and accounts whiz Jenny Verroen (who had a great line in irony), and sales manager Geoff Williams, not to mention three members of my own family. Surely and certainly we all progress towards the obit columns.

Now permanently demiagoraphobic as a result of far too much people contact, I spend more time with my beloved and admiring chickens, drinking coffee on the deck, reading novels I’ve read before but forgotten about, desultorily making compost, and playing more games of Scrabble than is strictly healthy.

The reins are now firmly in Hans’s hands. May the horse be with him.

I have surrendered the grandiose independence of my solitary office (I was feeling so remote in there, although you would be amazed by who goes to the gents, when and with whom) to move into what was Editorial. It is now me and Simon along with the copy typist position (Brenda on Mondays and Tuppy on Fridays), and Renee the accountant (not to be muddled up with Renee the receptionist). Michael and Carol/Stella have moved into the gents gazing cubby hole – we await editorial comment, a McDuck perhaps? Or a new carol for Christmas?

Careena is now in charge of all office ordering. No-one else has authority to order anything except claret, so see her if you really think you can convince her of your needs. Kissing the occasional foot helps, I have discovered.

Once again, many thanks to you all for the wonderful support you have given The Echo. Just think, without it we would all live hassle-free, non-alcoholic unstimulated lives with no stress and lots of driving licences.

This memorandum is clearly confidential so if you pass it on to the opposition make sure you get a good price for it.

Nicholas

July 16, 1996

TIMELINE Early days: publisher David Lovejoy with editor Hans Lovejoy.

We have relocated!

Botoxic – civilisation reaches its apex in Butthole, Arkansas. Overcome by the glare of intellectual brilliance, Echo staff retreat to Mullumbimby, where they eke out a meagre existence distilling alcohol from newspaper and running it over the state border.

They also run a legitimate weekly as a front. After much intensive study physicists suggest that the Echo lifeform may one day evolve into an online entity exuding at least half the candlepower of a Facebook advertisement.

Googles begin to stir in nanospace.

www.echo.net.au

From one of Nick’s last memos

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The friendly staff at Bangalow Upholstery would like to inform their loyal clients that they are still open and trading as usual.

Happy Birthday Echo For all your upholstery needs please phone 6680 5255 or come in and see us at our new premises 100 metres off the highway on Billinudgel Rd (Stock Route Rd), Billinudgel, 50 metres on from the railway bridge on the right hand side.

Bangalow Upholstery Reupholstering and covering all classes of furniture The Byron Shire Echo June 21, 2011 45

The thinking dog’s paper

Dog bites town, town bites dog, dog leaves Grealdine Searles

diverse and cosmopolitan array of people. We moved to Broken I’m writing this from Steel Head (now with two sons) in Town, Newcastle, where I’ve 1981 where I became involved lived for the last six years – the with a group of artists doing global warming capital of the local murals, theatre props and world and both the antithesis posters (anything really) until and possible nemesis of Byron. we became Offart and began I guess when I left I thought working further afield. Our that the scene of the crime studio was on the top floor of was the best place to hide. the old Byron Bay Community Now, after several years of Centre, which we shared coughing up coal dust and with pigeons and rats and struggling for purchase in the the occasional mad person. vat of complacency that is the And it was here that Jason rest of Australia, I’m starting Smythe was conceived, drawn, to miss the endless quests quartered and ultimately for inner children, the crystal prepared for his entrée into The healing and applauding of Echo and Byron society. one’s excrement workshops, I’m bit hazy about this but I the visceral spats at Council think I first met Nick at a United meetings and the general Shire Party meeting in the mid crankiness and discontent 80s, and later Jeff, David and that seems to attend living in Michael, but it was Jeff who Paradise. suggested, after I’d entered I arrived on the Far North a comic strip for an Echo Coast in 1976, at the beginning competition (about Mount of my adulthood, with my Chincogan) that I do a regular husband and two-year-old son, comic for the paper. armed with the Whole Earth That was in 1990 and The Catalog and Henry Doubleday’s Echo was still in A4 format, Organic Gardening Guide as leaner and maybe a bit meaner ready for change as you can be and so was Jason Smythe, the at 23. We lived on the edge of dog who became the dingo Byron Shire then, on a farm at kelpie cross able to change Dorroughby with no telephone shape faster than a speeding line and often unable to leave bullet! leap tall tales in a single the farm in wet weather, but bound!! who became more this was no impediment to powerful than the North Coast meeting an astonishingly Mail train!!! – (strangely both

Jason and the train service are now defunct). The comic strip continued in this linear format for a couple of years until Jason experienced his first death... from irradiation and behaving like a rutting chimpanzee, if I remember correctly.

He was reborn fatter and

squarer about 18 months later to fit the new Echo tabloid shape. The population of Byron seemed to followed suit. Or perhaps that was only through the lens of his jaundiced kelpie eye – I do recall he was often

on sick leave at this time of readjustment! But massive changes for Byron were afoot – the dual carriageway from Brisbane was creeping closer and closer, the General Manager now at the helm of

Council was from the same broad church that spawned John Howard and Tony Abbott (who had also just been handed the keys to the future in the 1996 election), and the more recent émigrés to Lotusland, who seemed to be more and more determined to recreate the very same suburbias they had just fled.

With the onset of the Howard years, Jason became less an observer of social peccadillos and more a political polemicist, which in hindsight was a shame given the repetitive and predictable nature of political behaviour.

Observing the length of time people hugged each other and their ensuing methods of disengagement, or the relentless scapegoating of dogs for all of society’s ills, was always far more entertaining!

And now The Echo is 25!

Sadly Jason is no longer with us to enjoy the party – his bones, collected from Mount Warning where he spent his last hours strapped to its crooked finger as punishment for bringing his often impenetrable satire to Byron Shire, now lie at the bottom of my garden in Newcastle. But hey, Happy Birthday anyway!

An early Echo Awards night at the Mullum civic hall. Photo John McCormick.

“You only have so many bottles in your life,

never drink a bad one!”

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Len Evans

Harbord Wines are available at these outlets

sunrise cellars Byron West Shopping Centre, Sunrise • 02 6685 5130

46 June 21, 2011 The Byron Shire Echo

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223 Broken Head Road, Suffolk Park • 02 6685 3222

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